


They Make a Desert and Call it Peace

by cinnamon_skull



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Aged Up! Damian Wayne, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Face-Fucking, Light BDSM, M/M, Pining, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-11 00:04:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7014121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinnamon_skull/pseuds/cinnamon_skull
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dirty bar in the middle of a desert isn’t exactly the best place for old lovers to reunite. But Damian stops running long enough for Dick to talk some sense into him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Make a Desert and Call it Peace

**Author's Note:**

> Damian is around 23 here, Dick about 35. 
> 
> Playlist - Cigarettes after Sex.

“Your best Merlot,” Damian requested, rubbing his knuckles over the weatherworn bar. “A clean glass, please.”

The bartender grunted and stared quizzically at the shelves of alcohol behind him for a few moments before bending down and grabbing a dusty bottle from the bottom row. His eyes slanted over Damian’s expensive suit, wildly out of place in the desert heat.

“Red blend only,” he garbled, running a rag over dull green glass. “We don’t get a lot of you _fancy_ kinds in here.”

The man behind the bar had a clumsy way about him with a head of graying curls, but Damian could tell from his posture that he knew how to handle himself. His hands were thick and covered in scars, and there was a pendant gleaming at his throat that Damian didn’t like.

Rundown bars in the middle of the desert weren’t exactly known for being progressive.

“Listen,” Damian leaned over the bar and bared his teeth. “Fancy is the least of what I am to you.”

Even without the gleam of the steel throwing knives flashing from under his jacket, Damian’s dark look was enough to set the man behind the bar on edge.

“I don’t mean nothing,” he said quickly, twisting open the bottle. His jaw tensed as he pulled a highball from under the counter. “Sorry. Out of stems.”

“Leave the bottle,” Damian said, throwing a few folded up bills down and dismissing the old man with a quirk of his brow. He wiped the rim of the glass before bringing the drink to his mouth, inhaling the burnt, earthy aroma of cheap wine before downing it. He poured himself another before twisting in his seat to survey the room.

The entire bar was lit by seedy, red neon lights that made the time of day impossible to tell, and the floor was covered in gritty, orange sand that blew in with every swing of the double doors. It wasn’t much different than the places Damian had found himself frequenting the past several months as he sought out the pulse of thinly-veiled violence until he could quiet the hunger clawing at his insides.

It hadn’t all been like that. He’d spent three months in Dubai, training with the Al Razi family and playing with sniper rifles in the rusty gold dunes of the Arabian desert. Bruce owed them a favor, anyway, and Damian didn’t mind playing mercenary for a little while, even if he hadn’t gotten to kill anyone.

He would have done it longer, too, would have disappeared into the heat and the crumbling cliffs that hid packs of pining, sand-starved wolves, if he hadn’t run into a man with claw-mark scars on his forehead holding court in the middle of a dusty basecamp. He was handsome and loud and arrogant, and when he’d heard the name Wayne thrown around the tent in clumsy Arabic his eyes narrowed at Damian.

When he’d asked Damiana about his _brother_ with a smirk on his lips and a leer in his eyes, Damian had run.

From there it was another few months in the Himalayas for more training, where Damian would practice until his hands bled and his bones ached. It was also where he’d received a crumpled, water-stained letter from Bruce, explaining of Alfred the Cat’s passing. That night, Damian had climbed a mountain in the dark, until he reached the top to see a starry sky full of a heavy moon mocking him in its serenity. He’d screamed and let himself cry, because he’d left Alfred behind, let the stupid cat die thinking Damian didn’t care or remember.

That was what love did — Damian remembered. Hollowed a person out, gutted them in the cruelest way, until there was no making them whole again. Love was a wound that never stopped bleeding.

Nothing after would quiet his mind, not even a short stint in Japan that had him squaring off against a lower branch of the Yakuza. But the fighting kept him sane, gave him something to focus on, even if it was stupid and dangerous to do it alone.

And now he was crossing another desert, drinking to pass the time and contemplating if Bruce would entertain a call from the shitty pay phone tucked in an alcove at the back of the bar.

His eyes filtered listlessly around the room after another glass of wine.

There was a girl at the edge of the bar wearing a beaded poncho over a bathing suit and no shoes, who looked like she could could go a few rounds. Everyone in this town had a worn out edge to their face, but there was a mounting hysteria, too, like the same heavy darkness was making them smile and laugh and pour back drinks to fill the holes. It was why Damian had picked it.

A laugh rang out, louder than the others, deeper, too. Damian’s skin prickled.

 

_No._

 

It was telling that he hadn’t noticed him sooner. Tucked at the back and across from the a dingy, single room bathroom, Dick was sitting at a small wooden table with three barely-dressed women. Damian couldn’t tell yet if he was being himself or playing a role, but the point was that he was _here_.

Of all the dive bars halfway past Vegas, and Dick Grayson was sitting twenty feet from him. Looking at him felt like staring at the sun, made his eyes ache. It still felt so fresh, and Damian clenched his teeth together.

Dick threw his head back and laughed again, and Damian slid from his seat and pushed silently past his table to the bathroom. He ran the water, let the cold slow his pulse and pull him back from the well of memories pooling behind his eyes.

Maybe Dick hadn’t seen him. Maybe he’d be able to turn off the water and walk right out the door, and not stop walking until there were at least six cities between them again.

Damian stared at his reflection in the dirty mirror hanging over the sink. His suit was wrinkled and there were deep, purple bags nestled underneath his eyes. He knew he should leave, find another place to drift.

The door to the bathroom pushed open, flooding the small space with loud music and a hazy red glow. Dick stood in the doorway, haloed by crimson and looking as pretty as ever. When their eyes met in the mirror, Dick pulled the door shut behind him.

It grew dim again and quiet, and Damian could hear Dick breathing behind him, see the rise and fall of his chest in the mirror.

He wasn’t smiling.

A second later, the sound of the lock sliding into place followed.

“Grayson,” Damian said coldly, turning away from the mirror to face him.

Dick’s eyes travelled down the length of his body and then back up in an agonizingly slow arc that left Damian feeling warm. _“Robin,”_ he greeted without a trace of remorse.

It was a dirty move. But god, did it make Damian want to turn back around and lean over the sink, let Dick get his hands around the belt at his hips, feel his breath, hot and humid at the back of his neck.

“Can I...” Dick trailed off. He reached out a hand but paused, let his fingers dangle in the small space between their bodies until Damian could feel the phantom of his touch. And then Dick sunk to his knees.

“Like this?” Dick asked, squeezing his own thighs and looking ruined by the thought that Damian might reject him.

He should. It’d been almost a year of running, fighting back his feelings with violence and the feel of bones snapping beneath his fingers.

He pulled at Dick’s hair, tugged until he was looking back up with his throat exposed. Dick’s jaw ticked, the straining tendons of his throat working beneath his Adam’s apple and 5 o’clock shadow.

Dick’s eyes swallowed up the light, burning with need and unspoken words of pain and pleasure, all splayed out against the brightest shade of blue this side of the Mojave desert. He was pliant beneath Damian’s fingers, wanting and waiting for whatever Damian would let him have.

He did look older. His temples were framed by tufts of silky black hair threaded with grey and there were more wrinkles around his eyes and lips than Damian remembered. But he still possessed the wild, youthful energy of someone half his age.

Damian said nothing, loosened his fingers twined into Dick’s hair, and dropped his hands to his sides. The music on the other side of the door got lower as a slow, sultry song pulsed through the speakers.

Dick pressed forward slowly, running his palms up the back of Damian’s legs, over the second set of throwing knives hooked above his ankle, and then further up his calves, until his fingers stopped just at the curve of his ass.

And just like that, Damian felt himself sliding back under Dick’s spell. _Jesus fuck_ , he’d missed his touch. Missed his smell and his terrible cooking and the incessant run of his mouth.

Almost immediately, he knew his eyes gave him away, knew Dick could feel the moment his body gave in to the ghost of old memories.

He _wanted_ him. The truth was that he’d never stopped wanting him.

This time when he grabbed at Dick’s hair, it was more gentle. It was the touch of a lover, lingering and indulgent, and the sweep of his fingers across Dick’s scalp made him groan and lean forward to nuzzle a cheek against Damian’s thigh. His hands followed, pulling at Damian’s belt until he could get the zipper down and yank his slacks so they pooled at his feet.

On his way back up, Dick trailed his fingers up Damian’s naked thighs. He inspected every new scar and bruise, kissed each with a wet mouth until Damian started to feel dizzy from the attention. He pulled back again to study Damian through the tight material of his boxers. When Dick pressed his lips against the outline of his cock, Damian clutched desperately at the sink behind him.

Dick cupped him with his palm, got his fingers around his shaft and teased, forcing a sigh from his mouth. The noise made Dick look up, and for the first time since he entered the dingy bathroom, he smiled, his eyes lighting up with that old, familiar mischief. His fingers skimmed over Damian’s hips, pushing up his shirt so that he could kiss the vee of muscle, run his thumb against the coarse line of hair up the center.

He got to work on the buttons of Damian’s shirt, biting at each new inch of exposed skin until he was pushing up, off his knees. He curved a finger over Damian’s heart, scratching lightly at the skin with his nails.

There was a question in his hooded gaze, in the lazy curve of his lips and the flush on his cheeks. Damian didn’t want to answer, wanted to pretend he couldn’t still read Dick as easily as the day he’d left, wanted to push him back down and get his cock in the wet heat of his throat and forget his own name.

Instead, he brought a hand up, thumbed against the sharp edge of Dick’s cheekbone. He watched Dick’s eye flutter close, watched the emotion play across his face until the only thing left was an unfiltered _want_. And then he ducked his face down and pressed his mouth against Dick’s parted lips.

God, he _wanted_ it to be vicious. He wanted to take and take until Dick slumped forward, but it felt too much like what he’d been aching for all these months. Dick always kissed like he flew — a little showy and playful, his tongue teasing at the seams, but so cruelly precise that Damian felt his legs quake as he pulled him over the next ledge.

Dick groaned, dug his fingers into the lapels of his jacket and pulled him forward, switched their positions so that he could press Damian’s back into the bathroom door. “Why did you leave _Dami?”_ Dick pleaded into his neck, pulled the skin under his jaw into his mouth hard enough to leave a mark.

Sweat had started to gather at the back of Damian’s neck and temples, the dry Nevada heat as unforgiving as their mistakes. Dick didn’t wait for an answer as he kissed Damian again, fucked into his mouth with his velvet tongue and grazed his lips with the edges of his teeth. Damian made a noise again, a warbled, drowning sound, but Dick swallowed it all the same.

When Damian’s lips felt raw and bruised, Dick trailed his mouth over his chest, sinking back down and getting his hands around the waistband of Damian’s boxers and tugging. He was achingly hard now, the front of his boxers tented and wet. Dick gave a breathy laugh and teased until Damian yanked desperately at his hair with both fists.

At the first touch of Dick’s wet mouth on him, Damian knocked his head back against the door and squeezed his eyes shut. Memories of every past intimacy flooded his mind and made his breath catch in his throat.

“Grayson,” he pleaded, finally, and once he said the other man’s name, he couldn’t stop the words from repeating in a frantic chant. _“Grayson, Grayson, Grayson.”_

“I’m right here,” Dick answered, his hot breath ghosting along Damian’s shaft. “I’ve got you. I _always_ do.”

Anything else Damian might have wanted to say was cut off by the feel of Dick’s lips wrapping around the head of his cock and the sweet, wet slide as Dick pushed forward and swallowed him down.

How could something that felt so good be so, so dangerous?

Dick paused, settled his mouth around Damian and savored the taste like he might never get a chance to have him again. His hands clamped around the back of Damian’s thighs, pulling him forward into his mouth until he was buried deep.

Damian looked down, watched Dick’s cheeks hollow and his eyes shut in pleasure. He already felt his orgasm building pressure at the small of his back, felt his insides clench emptiness and his blood flare hot at the sight of spit running down the front of Dick’s chin.

He got a hand around himself, squeezed the base until the haze disappeared from behind his eyes. His other hand wound in Dick’s hair again, pulled him off his dick so he could see the puffy, pink lines of his mouth.

“Do you want more?” Damian grunted between his teeth.

“More,” Dick pleaded clumsily, already lost in it. The bathroom was on fire, alight with the headiness of their arousal. It reminded Damian of the way his bedsheets would smell after a morning of lazy sex with Dick and something inside his chest loosened.

Damian hooked a finger into Dick’s mouth, dragged it down his bottom lip to smear pre-cum and spit across his cheek. “Want me to fuck your face?”

 _“Jesus,”_ Dick whined. “Yes, _Damian_.”

And Damian did. Pulled Dick back on his cock, pumped his hips into his throat and listened to the way Dick moaned under him and took him down so perfectly. Halfway through Dick pushed a frantic hand inside his own pants to get off.

Damian humored him, let his face get red, let him work himself to the edge while his cock slid against his tongue. He kicked Dick’s hand away when he got too close, pressed the ball of his expensive loafers into the hardness between his legs and let it rest while Dick sobbed beneath him.

“Want me to come on your face? Down your throat?”

Dick shuddered around him, pressed his nose to Damian’s groin and sucked down _hard._ Damian fucked roughly into that perfect heat a few more times and then spilled down Dick’s throat, one hand wrapped around the back of Dick’s neck and the other still fisted tight in his hair.

Everything went the same shade of red as the sleazy neon sign outside the bathroom. _“I love you,”_ Damian heard Dick say from the back of his mind, the words he’d said the last time they’d been together like this.

When Dick moved his face back, a line of cum trailed down the side of his mouth. Damian gave Dick two fingers to suck. “Get up.”

It was a slow rise and Dick’s knees had to have been screaming from crushing against sand and hard tile. Damian pushed him back against the door, reached a spit-wet hand into the front of Dick’s pants and gathered the heat of him into his palm.

He tried not to make a sound at the familiar weight of Dick’s cock against his skin. A few rough strokes just the way he liked, and Damian watched Dick come apart beneath him the same way he’d done all those times before. His lips parted and his jaw went slack, and Dick met Damian’s stare as he came with his name on his lips, until the pleasure was too much and pulled him under.

It was his favorite part, watching Dick lose control. He gave in, then, submitted to Dick in a way he’d wanted to all night. He kissed him, licked his taste from his mouth and hoped the slide of his lips said more things than he ever could.

It was almost tender.

Dick pulled Damian into his arms until their breathing slowed. It felt so much like nothing had changed between them that Damian was convinced everything had.

“Where did you go?” Dick pressed his face into his neck and inhaled, mouthing against his pulse.

Damian’s tongue was heavy, the bitter taste of himself still clinging to the roof of his mouth from Dick’s kisses. “Everywhere but Gotham.”

“Yeah, I kind of got that,” Dick said before digging his teeth in, making Damian shudder. “When you said you were getting a cup of shitty coffee from the bodega around the corner and then never came back.”

“Todd always said it was closer to battery acid than coffee.”

_“Damian.”_

“Look,” Damian pushed Dick back sharply. His eyes were still heavy, but his fingers tapped anxiously where they gripped at his hips. Sex always energized Dick, made him jittery like an addict. “Just because you got on your knees doesn’t mean I owe you.”

“I know that,” Dick said quickly, moving his hands up so he was gripping at Damian’s arms over the silky material of his jacket. “I just — it’s good to see you, is all.”

“Good for now,” Damian said tiredly. “But what about when you push me away because of your fucked up sense of obligation.”

Dick closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. “You know it’s a little more complicated than that.”

“Complicated,” Damian sneered, crowding Dick against the door. “Is that the word you’d think when I was inside you, Grayson? When you were begging and sobbing my name, and I’d press _that_ spot to get you really screaming.”

 _“Jesus.”_ Dick’s eyes flash open, dark and possessive. “I missed your mouth.”

“But not all the baggage that comes with it, right?” Damian pressed on, despite the building heat in Dick’s stare. “Not the _Wayne_ name.”

“You were always so impatient,” Dick said softly, licking his lips. “I was getting my shit together for you.”

“You kept dancing around it like a circus performer,” Damian seethed. “You couldn't handle me.”

Dick’s brows rose in surprise. “I was the only one who ever could.” He reached out, combed back Damian’ hair with his fingers. “Still am.”

Damian jerked back. “Don’t be so naive, Grayson.”

“I’m not naive,” Dick said in a rush, pressing a hand against Damian’s chest to feel the movement of his heart underneath. “I’m in love.”

“Love,” Damian bit out. “That’s an emotion for the weak.”

“Alfred died curled up in my arms, wrapped up in someone who loved him,” Dick said gently. “I know you don’t really believe that.”

The rage Damian had felt building up the column of his spine vanished, like a rug had been pulled out from under him.

“Alfred?” he blinked. “You kept him after I left?”

“Of course I did, Damian,” Dick replied. “He was ours.”

The final piece of angry resistance fell away inside Damian’s mind. He slumped forward, let Dick pull him more tightly into his arms.

“You love me?” Damian asked, quietly, even though he hated the way his voice sounded.

“Always,” Dick repeated, running his palms against Damian’s back. His touch felt warmer than Damian ever remembered, but he didn’t push him away.

All around them, the wind swept across the barren desert.

For once, Damian didn’t feel like running.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This idea took hold of me yesterday like a fever and I had to share. If you liked it, let me know!
> 
> Follow me on cinnamonskull/jayskulll for more fun ; ) Happy MDW all.


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